The 50 Heaviest Songs Before Black Sabbath: #10-1

06 - Bitter Creek, "Plastic Thunder" (1967)
Think you hear the sound of thunder? Nope -- it’s only Bitter Creek’s 1967 “Plastic” version. But with its cavernous bass and Yardbirds-on-acid fuzz guitar, this song is almost as heavy as the real thing. Surprisingly little is known about Bitter Creek; the consensus is that they were from Georgia and that “Plastic Thunder” was the only 45 they ever issued.

I disagree. Mandrake Root by Deep Purple should be #1. Deep Purple were the first heavy metal band. Led Zeppelin were just hard rock. Gradually over time, especially with Deep Purple's "In Rock" record, released in 1970 the exact same year as Black Sabbath's debut album, Deep Purple steamrolled over most of Black Sabbath's Ozzy era records and anything by Led Zeppelin for that matter.

Dazed and Confused got much heavier when Robert Plant pretty much threw out most of Jake Holmes lyrics and came up with his own. "Lots of people talking, few of them know that the soul of a woman was created below" I don't know about all women, but my wife? When you marry a girl and for years you love her and you're faithful to her and she certainly seems to love you and you have no reason to think that she's unfaithful to you and then you find out that all along she's been performing oral sex on other guys, lots of other guys, while you're at work....well, her soul certainly wasn't created in Heaven.
"Lots of people knew, but me they wouldn't tell
'Cause the soul of my woman was forged in the fires of hell"

I'll have to listen to Spirit's Taurus, did Led Zep rip these guys off too? Certainly Jake Holmes version should be somewhere on this list. And Mississippi Queen, super heavy! Was that Ringo that said "Blisters on my fingers" I always thought that sounded like John. A couple of years ago I was jamming with my then 8 year old great niece. I was playing some heavy chords to a beat she was pounding out on the drums and after we had been playing for awhile she yelled "I've got blisters on my fingers!" She'd never heard Helter Skelter, she just had blisters on her fingers. I cracked up! Too much!

It's a shame a single band credited as the creator of the metal. People should study a little history. Or clean the ears. Because the true fathers of heavy metal are Cream, The Jim Hendrix Experience, Blue Cheer, Sir Lord Baltimore and Led Zeppelin. Black Sabbath is just a product of the bands mentioned be shameful to think that the metal would exist without these bands.

We felt the whole point of this list is to display the HUGE variety of bands that led to the creation of metal, and how much heavy music existed before Sabbath. Sabbath is of course the first band most people can agree on, but we were hoping to do a bit of education on the history of heavy with this list.

The Jacula song should be removed from this list. The distorted guitars were clearly added much later. No one was able to get Celtic Frost-type distortion like that in the late 60s. You guys should have done a bit more research on this one.

I totally agree Led Zep's dazed and confused should be #1. But Jake Holmes version should be in the top 50 as well. If it wasn't for the Jake Holmes version there would be NO Zeppelin version. Just like if Spirit have not have done Taurus, there would be no "Stairway" as we know it.